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IInternational visitors to Vietnam in August estimated 339,000 arrivals.
Totally, international visitors in 8 months of year 2008 reached 3,009,153
arrivals, 6.9% higher than those in the same period of year 2007
The yearly event, which will take place in Dam
Sen Park in District 11, will feature a tourism photo exhibition,
introduction of tours and other related products to travelers, promotion of
attractions, a food festival, and game shows. The organizing committee will
spend around VND1.5 billion to organize the event. One-third of the money
will come from the city’s State budget and the balance from sponsors.
In a recent Vietnamese-Japanese cultural
exchange forum, the two parties stressed the need to increase Vietnamese and
Japanese language lessons and exchanges on the art of comic books, other
contemporary arts and fashion.
The Miss Vietnam Tourism 2008 pageant will be
held in HCMC and Halong, Nha Trang and Can Tho cities from April 20 to July
19, according to the event organisers.
The beauty contest, the first of its kind, is
expected to select the most outstanding contestant who has comprehensive
knowledge of Vietnam’s culture, tourism and people, and is able to promote
the image of Vietnam to friends worldwide. The winner will also represent
Vietnam to partake in the Miss International Tourism pageant.
Troupes including Archipel Indigo of France,
Rajasthan of India, Ryukukan-Okinawa of Japan and the Royal Apsara Arts
Troupe of Cambodia are set to take the stage under next year’s theme
Cultural Heritage with Interaction and Development. Thai Hoa, a palace in the Hue
royal building complex, is being digitally recorded and analyzed for preservation and restoration using the latest technology from South Korea. Hoang Thanh (royal citadel) and Ho Quyen (tiger fight) palace will be the KX program’s next projects.
KX will also offer technology transfer and training courses in Vietnam for hi-tech historical relic preservation and restoration in the future. More than 1,000 tourists, mainly Japanese, were brought to Tien Sa port, central Da Nang city, on September 30 by Peace Boat.
The tourists are scheduled to visit Uncle Ho’s house on stilts, the fifth Military Zone Museum and the Champa Sculpture Museum during their two-day visit to Da Nang. Besides, young visitors will
join their local peers in cultural exchange programmes such as Vietnamese gastronomy festival and music performance, and a traffic safety campaign to promote helmets use. Pacific Airlines on September 21 began a new domestic flight service between Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang. Vietnam-Korea Mid-Autumn Cultural Festival to be held (19/09/2007) The Vietnam Museum of Ethnology will coordinate with the National Folk Museum of Korea to organize the 2007 Vietnam-Korea Mid-Autumn Cultural Festival in Hanoi from September 21-23 with assistance from the Korean Cultural Centre in
Hanoi, the Vietnamese-Korean Culture Exchange Centre and Viettel Company.
The event is expected to help visitors understand both Vietnamese and Korean cultures as well as the similarities and differences between the Mid-Autumn festivals in the two countries. There will be Vietnam’s lion and dragon dances and walking-on-stilt games for children, and Korea’s Nongkag dance and Songpeong moon cake making demonstration. The Bahama cruise ship, the Clipper Odyssey arrived in Quy Nhon port, central coastal Binh Dinh province on Sept. 17. The 91 visitors on board toured the "Banh It" Cham tower, girdle cake making village in Tuy Phuoc district, a museum
dedicated to national hero King Quang Trung in Tay Son district. During the day of visit, they learned about the Tay Son upraising, enjoyed the Central Highland Gong performance and were introduced to the Cham culture
and architectures in Binh Dinh. The Quy Nhon Travel Ltd. Co. (Q.Travel) in cooperation with OSC Travel company in Ho Chi Minh City has arranged for Clipper Obyssey ship cruising Binh Dinh province twice this month, which
brought nearly 200 visitors to the province.
Vietnam has been voted as
one of the 20 best travel destinations in 2007 by readers of prestigious
travel magazine Condé Nast Traveller.
The annual Condé Nast
Traveller Readers' Travel Awards honor the hotels, airlines, islands, tour
operators, spas, cruise lines, cities, and countries that its readers see as
most conducive to rewarding travel.
The annual country poll was
conducted among 30,000 readers with evaluations based on 10 different
categories, including “abundance of culture”, “variety of attractions”,
“range of accommodation”, and “environmental friendliness”.
Vietnam entered the list
this year for the first time, ranking 18th among the top 20 selected travel
destinations.
India took the first
position in this year’s list, compared with fourth place last year.
The popular South Asian
country scored above 89 in all ten criteria, with its best features being
culture (scoring 97.17 out of 100), value for money (94.78) and variety of
attractions (96.30).
The other top 5 winning
countries were Italy, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand
scored highly for scenery and Italy has the best food and climate in the
world while Thailand was singled out for its friendliness.
Together with Vietnam,
Argentina, Chile, Japan and Egypt were the list’s newcomers.
In the global luxury travel
trade circles, the Condé Nast Traveller awards are considered the equivalent
of the Oscars of the travel industry.
An officer at the
provincial Office Administration confirmed to the Daily on Tuesday that the
investors presented the plan in a meeting with Ba Ria-Vung Tau vice chairman
Ho Van Nien over the weekend.
"The investors said would
spend a huge amount of investment to build a tourism complex in Ho Tram
tourist area in Xuyen Moc District. They will join forces with a local
company named Ho Tram Joint Stock Company to develop over 900 hectares of Ho
Tram into a complex of luxury resorts, entertainment facilities and other
services," she said.
"They want to build some
works such as a Disneyland-style theme park, a casino, and a resort there.
The vice chairman has welcomed the investment idea but said that the
provincial must ask for the Prime Minister’s approval for the casino area."
Since the meeting was aimed
for the investors to present their investment plan, the provincial
government has not taken any move to check the investors’ financial status
as well as the project’s viability, she added.
This was the first time the
two investors met with the provincial government over the project, but they
had earlier met with central authorities including State President Nguyen
Minh Triet and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to present their plan. If
translated into reality, it will become the largest tourism project in the
country.
General Director of Ho Tram
Joint Stock Company Le Duy Phuong told the Daily that he could not tell all
details of the project because the partners were still having their experts
and architects to make an overall design for the complex.
However, he said his
company and the partners had planned to develop around 10 functional areas
for the complex. It will comprise a financial-banking center, a water world
park and aquarium, a casino, a cinema area, resorts, and others.
"We met with the partners
many years ago over the project. We have estimated that with many works the
total investment will be some US$5.2bil," he said.
Phuong said his company
wanted to contribute to the joint venture plan in both land use rights and
cash, and now the two sides are preparing related procedures for submission
to the provincial government.
"We are completing
procedures for the project approval soon," he said.
The Mekong Delta province
of Hau Giang has given the nod to construction of a 3 million USD
eco-tourism complex in Vi Thuy district under the Viet-Australia Tourism Co.
Ltd.
The complex will include
eco-tourism attractions, a three-star resort, restaurants, halls, villages
specialising in Vietnamese delicacies as well as sports and entertainment
facilities.
The complex will also have
a gallery displaying artefacts from the Kinh, Hoa and Khmer ethnic groups.
More tourists are expected
to flock to southernmost Phu Quoc island with a 68 million USD five-star
resort in the pipeline. The Tropicana Island Resort and Spa will be
developed on an area of 30 ha in An Thoi village by a joint venture between
the Long Beach Corp, ESACO and Tropicana.
The facility, to house 100
villas and 250 luxurious rooms, is considered the biggest resort in Viet Nam
so far.
Work on the project will
start on September 18 and is expected to wrap up in late 2010.
From October 5 to 7, 2007,
the International Tourism Exhibition 2007 will be held in HCMC. This is an
event held by funding from HCMC Department of Tourism and local tourism
companies.
La Quoc Khanh, Deputy
Director of the HCMC Department of Tourism, said that with two years of
experience in holding this event, the tourism exhibition 2007 would be very
professional. In order to help
membership enterprises actively promote foreign tourism and arrange the
schedule and charges Vietnam Tourism Association distributes information
on events are being organized from the second half of 2007 to the
beginning of March 2008. 1. Mekong Ecological tourism Fair
from July 26th - July 29th. Place: Laos 2. JATA fair from September
14th to September 16th of 2007. Place: hall 1-3, Tokyo Big sight, Tokyo,
Japan. 3. LEISURE fair from
September 25th to September 28th of 2007. Place: Crucus Center, Moscow,
Russia 4. TOPRESSA fair from
September 26th to September 28th of 2007. Place: Deauville, France 5. ITEX fair from
October 7th to October 12nd of 2007. Place: Cambodia 6. CITM fair from
November 1st to November 4th of 2007. Place: Kunming international
Convention & Exhibition Center 7. WTM fair from
November 12nd to November 15th of 2007. Place: Excel, London 8. TRAVEX fair from January
28th to February 1st of 2008. Place: Thailand 9. ITB Tourism fair from
March 5th to March 10th of 2008. Place: berlin, Germany
International
visitors to Vietnam in December and 12 months of 2007
International visitors to Vietnam in December estimated 354,000 arrivals.
Totally, international visitors in 12 months of year 2007 reached 4,171,564
arrivals, 16.0% higher than those in the same period of year 2006.
Ho Chi
Minh City to launch big tourism event (19/03/2008)
The
HCM City Department of Tourism plans to organize the HCM City Tourism Day
2008 on April 18-20/2008 as an opportunity for the tourism sector to promote
its image to domestic travelers.
The city tourism department’s director Dong Thi Kim Vui said the committee
would receive bookings from entrepreneurs and tourism agencies until
mid-March.
The committee expects the event help not only the tourism sector to promote
image to domestic travelers but also travel firms to increase their turnover
by selling tours for the summer season. Last year’s event attracted over
100,000 visitors, and exhibitors reached deals worth a total of over VND1
billion.
Vietnamese
culture to take stage in Japan (20/03/2008)
Back in Vietnam, the Japanese goodwill ambassador will launch a movie-making
competition for Vietnamese students and Japanese films and music shows will
be broadcast on national television.
Miss Vietnam
Tourism 2008 to kick off (20/03/2008)
The organizers, Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, A Chau Film
Company, Saigontourist and Vietnam Airlines, said that they aim to make the
beauty pageant an annual event in the future.
Dance
troupes register to join Hue Festival (25/12/2007)
Among the singing, dance and musical performances, local artists will also
give visitors a taste of Hue with a re-enactment of a ceremony crowning
Nguyen Hue as King Quang Trung in 1788 and a show of ao dai (traditional
long dress).
The festival will wrap up with programme of performances on a floating stage
over the Huong (Perfume) River.
The city will also be treated to an exhibition of international sculpture,
the fifth of its kinds, to be held at nearby Abalone resort from May 3.
A team from the Korean Institute of Science and Technology (KX) are carrying out several hi-tech projects to analyze and restore historical architecture in Vietnam.
Japanese tourists flock to Danang (01/10/2007)
Pacific Air’s Nha Trang service takes off (24/09/2007)
On the occasion of the inauguration of the new flight HCM City-Nha Trang, Pacific
Airlines will sell the “Super daily cheap ticket” at 150,000 VND each.
Between September 21 and October 15, they will also sell hundreds of tickets from 300,000 VND to 360,000 VND each.
Northern central provinces gears up for gastronomy culture festival (24/09/2007)
Nghe An Department of Tourism has held a press conference to announce the schedule of the festival of culinary festival of the Northern Central provinces, on the occasion of World Tourism Day (September 27).
Accordingly, the Northern Central festival of culinary culture will be held in the Central
Park of Vinh City on September 27. The festival will have the participation of Thua Thien Hue, Thanh Hoa, Ha Tinh, and Quang Binh provinces. Moreover, nearly 20 businesses operating in the provincies tourism and service industry will also take part in the festival.
The festival will introduce the gastronomy arts, especially traditional
special foods, and cultural products from the northern central provinces. Furthermore, the festival is expected to create opportunities for local businesses to exchange and learn from experiences in service quality, quality improvement, and labor efficiency.
This is a good chance to for the northern central provinces to advertise
themselves as tourist destinations and attract investment into Nghe An.
Japanese culture introduced in HCM City (24/09/2007)
A “Day of Japanese Culture” opened in Ho Chi Minh City on September 23 to mark the 34th founding anniversary of diplomatic ties between Viet Nam and Japan.
Students from nine universities in the city and former students, who studied in Japan, took part in activites of the day.
A gala
night was held the same day with the participation of Vietnamese singers and Japan’s Gypsy Queen band
Odyssey docks in Binh Dinh province (19/9/2007)
Superstar
Gemini Cruise Ship docks at Nha Trang Port
A Superstar Gemini Cruise
Ship carrying 532 international passengers docked at Nha Trang Port in south
central Khanh Hoa Province on September 10.
Most passengers came from
Australia, the UK, the US, New Zealand, Sweden, Norway and Hong Kong on a
sight-seeing tour organised by Saigontourist Company and the TIC tourist
centre.
After visiting Long Son Pagoda, Dam Market, Oceanography Institute, ancient
houses and traditional craft villages, the visitors will leave the city for
Malaysia.
Thai
national symphony orchestra performs in Viet Nam
A group of 32 artists from
Thailand 's National Symphony Orchestra have made a performance tour in Viet
Nam to celebrate the 31st anniversary of Viet Nam-Thailand diplomatic ties
and the 80th birth anniversary of the Thai King.
The orchestra performed a number of Thai royal and classic works at the Ha
Noi Opera House on Sept. 10.
The Thai National Symphony Orchestra has, for a long time, given
performances at royal ceremonies, government's official ceremonies and
served the public. It gives a monthly performance for music lovers at the
Thai national opera house
U.S.
investors plan US$5-bil tourism project in south
Two U.S. investors The
Gillman Group and Fidelity Ventures Investment Group last weekend unveiled
their plan to develop a tourism project in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, which
it claimed would cost up to US$5bil, a local official said.
Eco-tourism
complex to be built in Hau Giang province
Phu Quoc island to
have 68 million USD resort
European
cruiseliner makes stop at Da Nang city
Tien Sa Port in the central
city of Da Nang welcomed 500 European visitors on September 3.
The tourists, mainly from France and the UK, explored the Cham Museum and
the Ngu Hanh Son or Hon Non Nuoc (the Marble Mountains) in Da Nang.
In the afternoon, the delegation returned to their ship, Gerimi, to continue
their voyage
ITE HCMC 2007 -
Travel firms advertise tourism
So far 157 travel firms from 26 countries have registered to participate in
the exhibition, including 30 from the USA, 14 from Australia, 10 from China
and Japan each, 8 from Thailand and 6 from France. According to the
American Chamber of Commerce, the travel firms from the US are the leading
ones.
“Three nations, one destination” is the slogan of tourism exhibition 2007.
On October 4, the three ministers of tourism of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia
will meet to discuss the strategy to develop tourism of three Indochina
countries, focusing on the “Three nations, one destination” theme.
Seven journalists of L’echo touristique, Le quotidien du tourisme (France),
The Traveller magazine (Hungary), the S&M publication and Focus & Travel
News (Turkey), TTG Asia (Singapore) and a group of Australian journalists
have agreed to participate in the event to bring the images of Vietnam
tourism to the world.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has also invited some officials
of the Indian Tourism Ministry and a caravan (car tour) group from Thailand
to attend this event.
